Marie Gouze was born on December 31, 1745 and was executed on November 3, 1793.
She was a playwright and journalist. Her feminist writings influenced a large audience. She wanted the same rights for French women that French men wanted for themselves. Inspired by the Declaration of the Rights of Man, she wrote The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen, in 1791, she challenged the male's authority and the notion of male-female authority inequality. She was executed during the Reign of Terror for her revolutionary ideals.

Marie de Gouges wrote the play L'Esclavage des Nègres (Negro Slave), but her play went unpublished until the French Revolution. She wrote about the rights of women for divorce, and the rights of women for sexual relations outside of marriage.

De Gouges believed the revoltion was long-coming, but was disappointed to find that the rights of women were not discribed in the revolution. She joined the Cercle Social group and stated her famous quote, "a woman has the right to mount the scaffold. She must possess equally the right to mount the speaker's platform."
Olympe de Gouges was alive when the "Revolution with hope and joy" came. On March 6, 2006, the junction of the Rues Beranger, Charlot, Turenne and Franche-Comte in Paris was proclaimed the place Olympe de Gouges. In the square, an actress Veronique Genest, read a part from the Declaration of the Rights of Woman.